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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500832">too flawed to hold you down</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/foibles_fables/pseuds/foibles_fables'>foibles_fables</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Warrior Nun (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Camila ships it, Character Study, F/F, Femslash, Internalized Homophobia, Light Angst, Mild Language, Post-Season/Series 01, Repression</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:15:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500832</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/foibles_fables/pseuds/foibles_fables</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s not like you to walk off from training, Bea.” ; Sister Beatrice comes to see just how blurred the line between burden and lightness is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>590</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>too flawed to hold you down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Well, I am...admittedly not even sure what this is trying to be, but HERE, HAVE IT BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND</p><p>(also, this was partially inspired by the hysterical character journals - particularly <a href="https://twitter.com/Beas_thoughts?s=21">@Beas_thoughts</a> - on Twitter. Such entertaining content. I haven't been in an active fandom in a decade, and hot damn, this is the one to be in!)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s not a surprise that Camila is the one to find her in the aftermath. And to be honest, Beatrice wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Better than any number of alternatives.</p><p>Regardless of the favorability, it makes sense. Beatrice had, after all, taken refuge in Camila’s eminent domain. When they reclaimed the Cat’s Cradle, Camila had reclaimed the piano and the armory, in that order. The rest had watched in quiet relief as Camila’s typical gleeful smile emerged at the familiarity, and then brightened with everyone else’s joy at being home - pursuers finally vanquished or shaken off. Their broken branch of the OCS (what’s left of it) finally home, tucked away in the hills of Andalusia. Nestled and safe. Together, blessedly alive.</p><p>And in dire need of preparation.</p><p>And preparing is what they are doing, each day run through to completion with toil and sweat, with gritted teeth, fierce eyes, and well-earned sleep. Until the next threat bursts forth, until the next question creeps around the corner. They are preparing.</p><p>But for the moment, Beatrice is unprepared, and the armory is her refuge - not the training space she had just left, not her dormitory. She needs to be among the weapons, in this quiet space. She’s polishing her <em>shuriken</em>, channeling the whirling in her head into methodical motion, mindful and mindless all at once. The renewed shine of them is satisfying - purified . But when she catches a glimpse of herself on the surface of one, she knows at once that her reflection will serve as a reminder of this day for a time to come.</p><p>“Oh! Hey, Bea.”</p><p>And Beatrice knows at once that Camila’s not actually surprised by her presence. But while surprise in her tinkling voice isn’t authentic, everything else it contains is. Beatrice turns and sees her standing in the doorway, beaming, always beaming, despite every other unfortunate cloud of uncertainty hanging over their heads.</p><p>It makes it just a bit easier for Beatrice to greet her with one in return. She almost feels it. Her smile is a bantam lie, a bearing of falsehood, but it’s one that serves a purpose.</p><p>They all serve a purpose, some more monumental than others.</p><p>“Camila.”</p><p>“What are you up to?”</p><p>No precursor, no question besides the obvious. Just bright, bubbling conversation, as though nothing is out of place. It is. Several things on Beatrice, in fact, are out of place: the practice <em>gi</em> still on her body instead of her habit, the blossoming hostile bruise blooming on her face, the deep frustration that keeps brimming in her ribs and in her throat, burning, declaring its menacing intent to come forth.</p><p>She gives her blade another swipe with the oil rag. Breathes, calls grace to her center. Beseeches it. It’s not much, but it’s enough for her to be able to reply without anything but the expected seeping into her voice.</p><p>“Just tending to my weapons.”</p><p>And here Camila nods: eyes wide, eyebrows raised in an exaggerated expression of understanding. Obviously wanting to say more, to ask more, to know more, but unable to call upon unobtrusive words.</p><p>“That’s great. They probably needed some attention.” Camila nods, again, voice quick and so close to cautious it sends a pang through Beatrice’s heart. She doesn’t need the delicacy, or any of the appeasement. She needs time, and quiet, and she needs the thoughts and the storm to settle. She needs her eye to stop throbbing. She needs Mary’s laughter to stop echoing in her head, she needs her body to forget Ava’s weight over her.</p><p>She needs to get a hold of herself.</p><p>She can do so in the silence that falls between them.</p><p>But Camila is rocking back and forth on her heels, having sidled up next to Beatrice’s meticulous working. She’s practically buzzing with energy, even after a hard morning of rigorous training. Not atypical. Not like the cloudiness billowing in Beatrice’s mind - normally so clear after such exertion. Clearer than ever. Always was. But now?</p><p>She stays quiet.</p><p>And Camila asks.</p><p>“How’s your eye?”</p><p>It must look gruesome, because Camila makes a cringing face as she asks. It feels gruesome. Her vision is already as though the left half the world has contracted to a slit. It pounds with every agitated heartbeat. Already inflamed. Threatening to bruise. Sure to leave a mark, red to purple to disgusting green.</p><p>It had been a great punch. Thrown just right: two knuckles pummeling into her orbital bone. Plenty of follow-through. Strike<em> past</em>, not at. Go too far.</p><p>The training’s paying off.</p><p>“It’s alright. It will heal. I’ve had worse.”</p><p>Nothing in what she says is a lie. Her eye <em>is</em> alright - nothing is broken. The tissue is just shocked. It will heal from the trauma. Her body is more adept at that than her mind. Her mind is always somewhere, now. (She needs to keep her mind here.)</p><p>And she has had worse. It’s not Beatrice’s first black eye, not by many, not by a lifetime of physical training. Not by hand, foot, staff, any of a hundred things. It won’t be the last, either, until her final moment of combat has been spent.</p><p>But it’s the first black eye that’s led to an absolute seething anger, an anger strong enough to lead her to shame.</p><p>(It’s not wrath, not yet. But Beatrice needs to get a hold of herself. There’s no room for anything else. Not now.)</p><p>“Are you sure?” Camila sing-songs, because nothing can break her spirit. But there’s also affectionate concern in the lilting, enough to break through, but not enough to assuage. “It’s not like you to walk off from training, Bea.”</p><p>Despite the kindness in Camila’s voice, it singes her skin to hear it spoken plainly. It’s <em>not</em> like her. Plenty of things are not like her. Plenty of things are <em>exactly</em> like her. But she always has to be just like her, reflected back in the mirror, reflected in her blade.</p><p>She places her knife aside and gathers her careful answer. A non-truth, a non-lie, an exercise in the dual nature of all things. In the dual nature of her own self: the flaws, and the reaching beyond them, the begging beyond them. The going too far.</p><p>“I suppose not.” A sigh. A controlling of her voice. A controlling of everything - not new, but strenuous now, especially right now. The anger lashes again. Beatrice wonders when her muscles will eventually give out, before reminding herself that they won’t. Can’t. For now, they don’t. “I owe the others an apology. I acted childishly. I was frustrated; I felt the session devolving when we should be taking every moment seriously.”</p><p>The non-lie: the session did devolve after the punch. The non-truth? That’s not why she’s angry. Beatrice has no idea why she’s angry. It’s one of those things she half-knows. Imperfect, as all things. (<em>For now we see through a glass, darkly.</em>) The incomplete, the partial, all adding up to provoke, unhinge. To make her blood boil despite the meditative breath in her lungs, despite the silent prayers parting and closing her lips.</p><p>Because of the hot thumping ache in her eye.</p><p>No, not because of her eye. Because of what happened before, what happened after. Because of what’s happening all around it. The punch is not the problem. The rest of it is. The rest of it can be itemized, but still not understood. (<em>For now I know in part.</em>)</p><p>Despite the Halo’s influence, Ava’s combat skills are in great need of refining. She has the might, and the speed, but literally none of the wherewithal to use it. With Lilith grappling her own new afflictions, Beatrice is best suited for the task. Beatrice spars with her, nearly exclusively, at every training session. She’s improving, but there’s still a mountain to go, a river to cross. And they’re not working with the same tools they had before.</p><p>Beatrice has a second goal: teaching Ava control. How to fight calm, how to not let the Halo drain and incapacitate her, so she doesn’t need to be carried bodily out of every single battle - her legs are slender, but deceptively <em>heavy</em>.</p><p>To gain control, Ava had to reach the brink of that control. She had to be pushed there, to learn to hold herself back.</p><p>That morning, Ava had faced her without the osmium vest.</p><p>And Beatrice had pushed her.</p><p>Pin after pin after pin. Swept legs, chokeholds, arm bars. Bodies writhing together on the ground despite the treacherous nagging in Beatrice’s lower belly. She could set it aside - she had a purpose. But Ava always tapped too soon. And always with some flippant, breathless, and irreverent self-deprecating remark falling from her mouth. Never frustrated, always laughing at the situation, despite everything, despite the now-unknown object embedded in her back, in her soul. It was inconceivable, enough that Beatrice could see right through it. There was always something else - something for one to hope another doesn’t see through to.</p><p>So Beatrice pushed harder, adding words to each strike, to each pin. Words that might have come from Lilith, or Mary, before. Harsh. Unlike Beatrice. Feeling unnatural coming from her mouth, like venom, like blood that doesn’t match. Words like <em>undeserving</em> and <em>selfish</em> and <em>weak</em> and all the caustic things she could fling out to penetrate Ava’s joking. And little by little, it started working. Ava struck harder, quicker. Decisively. Her lip flinched, here and there. Eyes twitched. Smile, sheepish, bitter, faded. Until Beatrice nearly had her pinned again, and said the words of undoing.</p><p>“<em>Try</em>, Ava. You’re not trying. Our champion shouldn’t be our greatest burden. You can’t be the one to pull us down.”</p><p>And then Beatrice was somehow on her back, wind knocked away, Ava’s weight across her hips. For just an instant, she saw Ava over her - face full of rage, bared teeth, heaving chest, tearful eyes that seemed to glow along with the sudden golden blaze at her back.</p><p>And she was beautiful. So beautiful that she would have taken Beatrice’s breath, if it wasn’t already gone.</p><p>Then, her left eye thundered with pain and every color of the spectrum, all at once. <em>Hard</em>, brutal, merciless. Ringing her skull, casting the world into a blur, casting it into stars. Beatrice knew at once that it was Ava’s fist behind the strike, but the Halo’s fury behind the fist. She threw two calculated but desperate arms over her face to block anything further, to mitigate, to negotiate every blow.</p><p>But none came. No more punches, no blinding blast of otherworldly energy.</p><p>Ava had controlled herself. She had rolled back from that precipice of power emanating from her every pore.</p><p>She had controlled herself and then she was panicking.</p><p>“Oh, <em>fuck</em>, Beatrice!”</p><p>Panicking was not what Ava had needed; panicking is not what either of them needs.</p><p>Her voice, pinched and cracking, did not draw Beatrice’s already-swelling eye open. Her unabashed curse did not draw a reprimand from Beatrice’s mouth. The smashed bones, they hurt, and Beatrice wonders if the strike hurt Ava’s hand, too. And though Beatrice could not see Ava’s face, she could feel it through how the words sounded. Eyes wide, face drained of its blood, forehead wrinkled in that way that’s begun to jump at Beatrice’s heart - not a threat but threatening, all at once.</p><p>“I am <em>so</em> sorry.” Urgent, abject. Sincere. Harrowed.</p><p>Beatrice’s own mouth was tight, throat was tight. With her eyes closed against the pain-shock, her other senses took over. Ava’s pressure on her hips and waist. The heat of her body there, amplified by their exertion, given off raggedly in their shared breathing. Her scent. Something sweet, and clean sweat. With her eyes closed, there was no stained-glass iconography to distract her, no gilded or iron-wrought working to keep her moored. The dark clouds of hapless craving were already sweeping in, filling the crevices of her mind with frustrated <em>want</em>, melding with the pain. And Beatrice was suddenly fighting them and all of the blurred lines, and not fighting them well, dazed by the clout.</p><p>And then, the directionless anger, roaring through in reserved silence.</p><p>And Mary’s provocative jeering was decidedly unhelpful.</p><p>“Damn! Now Sister Zen, <em>that</em>’<em>s</em> a real hit from a Halo Bearer. Got you good. Been there once or twice. Better walk it off. Hah!”</p><p>A tangle of limbs, a tangle of warningless thoughts. Beatrice wrestled herself from one, but not the other, fists balled, wordless, undisciplined discipline. And left - in silence, to silence.</p><p>And now she’s here. And Camila is listening, lips thoughtfully puckered, nodding. “I understand.” She doesn’t understand. But that’s fair - that’s not her fault. There are things so very few know. “I know it upset you. Mary was just teasing. At least she’s finally going to training.” Camila shrugs, smirking at her little good-natured jab, clearly glad to be meshed enough within the crew to make one.</p><p>It makes Beatrice smile, just a tiny bit, for the first time in hours. Camila is still so special. “Right. I suppose the banter still has its place. Wouldn’t be us without it.”</p><p>But Mary isn’t the problem, and the banter isn’t the problem. The burden is the problem, when she strives to be so weightless, so full of grace. To sublimate her flaws into staunch functionality and analyze and strategize and <em>keep everyone together</em>, because God knows someone needs to do so. Most of the time, she can’t feel its weight across her shoulders. She has a strong back, she has a steel center. She knows to breathe, to pray, to keep moving forward.</p><p>But sometimes, something cracks, something cleaves, and she just feels angry. And bruised. And burdened.</p><p>Burdened. Like when Beatrice was four years old, and didn’t understand the face her mother made when she asked if two women could get married. She wishes it wasn’t her first memory.</p><p>Burdened. Like her family’s long holiday to the Praia do Barril when she was twelve, where she saw that older girl in the sand and surf. Saw her salt-swept brunette curls, marrow-draining long lashes, and the constellated smattering of freckles in the strip of sunburn across her nose and cheeks. The first time she wanted to touch another’s skin, the first time she considered her own body’s crying out, with no explanation for it or way to contend with it. In the two weeks spent there, she never spoke a word to the girl. Just stared from afar. Beatrice still still wishes she had at least gotten a name, so the girl would be just a girl, not an entity that still rattles back for her at midnight. Sometimes, she sees her in Ava’s eyes, in Ava’s lashes, and it’s ruinous.</p><p>Burdened. Like the Switzerland years, nearly every moment of which spent mired in quiet solitary study, martial arts training, thousands and thousands of Rosary recitations, and probably every possible psychological defense mechanism, any combination thereof. The weight had almost been too heavy then, bowing under a composed surface. And she still wonders what her parents were even <em>thinking</em> - if they were trying to deliver Beatrice from temptation, an all-girls Catholic boarding school was probably not the most perfect environment in which to cut her loose. Like Mary told her once, there are worse things than Hell. Like never being truly known.</p><p>And now, the burden is Ava. Perhaps her heated words during training that morning had been realer than she realized. Ava is not a burden to the world, nor to the OCS, but she’s a burden to Beatrice. The burden is Ava, and the words Beatrice had spilled to her, spoken in a closer way to explicit than they ever had been to anyone. They had been heavy hitting the air. They’re still heavy now, thrashing against the resettling of silence.</p><p>The silence in the armory must have gone on for too long, because Camila is just looking at her, taking a gentle appraisal. Beatrice tosses her rag aside, watches it miss the table and flutter to the floor. Her eye, unseeing, hurts.</p><p>“Ava was really upset after you left.”</p><p>Lovely - now there’s rootless anger <em>and</em> guilt. Alongside a new sort of dull pang. Camila glances down, then back up, and keeps speaking.</p><p>“She thinks it’s her fault. That she hurt you, and that’s why you walked off.”</p><p>“It’s not her,” Beatrice finds herself saying immediately, and it strikes her with sudden and multiple levels of truth. Because her mind has finally caught up to all of the racing thoughts.</p><p>Ava Silva made her crumble, makes her wonder, makes her ache. But Ava can’t be to blame. Not when the common thread between every bit of burden is Beatrice herself.</p><p>Beatrice has to get a hold of herself. Has to know herself. (<em>Through a glass, darkly, but then face to face</em>.) Face to face is the most difficult part. But difficult is part of every task. Difficult is part of every step.</p><p>“It’s not her.” Beatrice repeats herself for no particular reason.</p><p>“I know, Bea,” Camila reassures her. “You should let her know that, though.” She reaches over to touch Beatrice’s arm, looking up at her through dark lashes and grinning. “I’ve wanted to tell you. It’s sweet, the way you are with her. The way you help her, and get through to her. You’re always wonderful to the new sisters, myself included.” She nods. “But there’s something about it - how you seem important to one another, and how she looks at you when you’re not looking. She’s been doubly-blessed: a second chance at life, and then someone like you, as a part of us, while learning how to live it.” Camila’s smile morphs into something more ambiguous, more clandestine, but still so warm. Her eyes glint. “It seems right. Don’t you think?”</p><p>More words to scatter into the air. These ones should be heavy, but they settle across Beatrice’s back almost without her noticing. She doesn’t contribute any more. Just closes her hands, opens them again. Turns fully towards Camila, and smiles. Her heart is beating.</p><p>“Thanks for listening, Camila.”</p><p>Camila snickers, squinting at the gratitude. “Sure. But I talked way more than I listened. I don’t know what you’re saying.”</p><p>Beatrice doesn’t know what she’s saying either.</p><p>She touches Camila’s shoulder before moving to leave from the armory.</p><p>“Oh, Bea?”</p><p>Beatrice turns to see Camila grimacing.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“You’re going to want some ice.” Camila winces, slowly raising a finger to point at her own eye. “It’s...pretty bad.”</p>
<hr/><p>Beatrice is grateful for the advice when she approaches the dinner tables - no appetite herself, but needing to stop by. The cloth-covered ice pressed delicately against her left eye both calms the pulsing tenderness and hides the discoloration. Ava doesn’t need to see it.</p><p>She finds Ava nearly face-down in a bowl of beef stew, eating with ravenous abandon. She’s been so hungry - appetite kicked into hyperdrive by all of the hard physical training. And the food is doing her body well. There are the beginnings of muscle, now, where she was once just thin, rounding at her shoulders and biceps and legs. Beatrice takes a deep breath before her eyes and thoughts are lost on them.</p><p>“Ava.”</p><p>Just loudly enough to be heard, not loudly enough to interrupt any other conversation.</p><p>Ava freezes at the sound of her name in Beatrice’s tone. Sits straight up, turns, mouth still full, cheeks puffed out. She looks confused, taken aback, before her expression turns to concerned shame as she takes in the ice pack, and what it conceals. Beatrice speaks so Ava doesn’t have to.</p><p>“I was hoping we could talk, later. In private.”</p><p>It’s a moment before Ava pulls her gaze from Beatrice’s eye and gathers a reply. She doesn’t remember to swallow. The words are garbled, but Beatrice understands them all the same.</p><p>“My room after dinner?”</p><p>Her eyes are so wide and so dark, so nervous and so hopeful. She has so much in her eyes - she has Beatrice in her eyes.</p><p>“Your room after dinner.”</p>
<hr/><p>There are blurred lines between everything, illuminated in the sunset light pouring in through Ava’s bedroom window. The bed’s wooden frame creaks as Beatrice sinks down onto the mattress beside her. Their shoulders brush. They breathe. Ava’s breath brings her voice on the exhale.</p><p>“I’m still not used to hurting people.”</p><p>There are blurred lines everywhere, and a dual nature to everything. Her statement has another side, unspoken, symmetrical but reflected in opposite. <em>I’m used to being hurt</em>.</p><p>Beatrice is used to it, too. Used to both.</p><p>She takes the cloth bundle from her eye so Ava can see the extent of the damage.</p><p>To Ava’s credit, she only cringes a little. A twitch of her jaw, a couple quick blinks. The ice must have helped.</p><p>“I’m...really sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t apologize. I was pushing you. I can handle more than this. I actually half-expected worse.”</p><p>“Is it painful?”</p><p>“Not so much anymore. It looks much more awful than it feels.”</p><p>A weak little smile, still more than enough to catch and hold Beatrice’s hopeless attention. “Makes you look more badass, at least.”</p><p>Beatrice gives a humored puff of air from her nose. “It was a good punch.”</p><p>“Well, what can I say, I aim for adequacy.”</p><p>“No, you aim for more than that.” Beatrice makes sure her voice is strong and encouraging, because that’s what Ava needs. And also because it’s the truth. “I know you do.”</p><p>Ava’s smile widens. She’s trying. They’re both trying. There’s newness, rawness, for both.</p><p>Beatrice has to make today right. She has to make herself known, even if she doesn't know herself. (<em>But then I shall now even as also I am known.</em>)</p><p>She wants Ava to know her. That much has already been made clear. The question is in the rest of the path forward.</p><p>“We’ve all had a lot weighing on us recently.” Too many burdens to begin to name. “I walked off today because of it. Not because of you. You’re not used to hurting people. There are things I’m not used to, either.” She pauses, and it’s as though the world is opening inside of her, shearing the skin from her bones, laying her so bare again that she’ll never go back together in the same order. But Ava is just sitting, listening, rapt and ready, owed an explanation, understanding of so much. Beatrice hears Camila’s words echo and suddenly wonders who’s helping who. “I’m still learning what it’s like to have someone <em>know</em>. About me, and my burdens.” A pause. Ava’s eyes are burning into each of her rearranging pieces. “You are the first one to say that I’m beautiful, in those words. It’s disarmed me. I’m not myself, and also more myself than I’ve felt. And that in and of itself is not easy.”</p><p>Quiet reverberates off of the stone walls. Beatrice realizes her heart is racing, realizes she’s holding her breath, just before Ava replies.</p><p>“Yeah.” She nods resolutely. “Yeah, I get it, Beatrice. I feel the same way. Like there are two parts to everything.”</p><p>There are two parts to everything. Hearts, minds, souls, wants, needs.</p><p>“Can I see it again?” Ava asks, gesturing to Beatrice’s bruised eye.</p><p>“Sure, I suppose, if you really want to.” And Beatrice isn’t sure when <em>seeing</em> became <em>touching</em>, but Ava’s fingertips are suddenly sweeping gingerly against the angry injured flesh. Feather-light inspection. Her face is close. Those marrow-draining eyes, those lightly freckled cheeks. Beatrice makes it a point not to flinch even when her touch begins to smart. She can control herself through the pain; she can control herself through the feeling of Ava’s palm brushing against her cheek, so close that if Beatrice turned her head just a tiny bit, her mouth would be against it. It’s hard to breathe over the hitch in her chest. Ava’s palm is so smooth, uncallused. But they’ll form. Beatrice considers her own palms, how long it took for her calluses to form. She wonders if and how Ava will ever feel hers.</p><p>Apparently, she isn’t controlling herself well enough.</p><p>But just there, with Ava’s light touch, it doesn’t feel like a sin. It feels like providence, like an opening window. Like a storm rolling in, vicious and promising some new return. Her limbs feel unbound. There are two parts to everything.</p><p>And then Ava is smiling, holding back that goofy laughter, and speaking.</p><p>“After you left, Mary started calling me <em>Tyson</em>.” She wags her eyebrows. “I kinda hope it sticks.”</p><p>They’re both laughing, then, filling the room with it. Ava’s hand falls from Beatrice’s face to the bed, next to Beatrice’s own, and their fingers maybe half-brush together. Or maybe it’s just a trick of her mind.</p><p>And in that moment, the line between burden and lightness is blurred. But the one Beatrice feels (and feels herself reeling from) is the latter.</p>
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